


The Routine

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Drunken Confessions, Drunkenness, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Implied Sexual Content, Jemma's POV, Kissing, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons had a routine, and it did not include being frightened half to death by a Scottish engineer breaking into her dorm room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Routine

**Author's Note:**

> As I went through old drafts on my tumblr, I found a random post into which at some point (months previously) I'd copied "accidentally broke into your apartment because I was drunk AU" from one of those prompt posts, so here it is. :-)
> 
> Unspecified college AU. They're both ~20, and this probably takes place in the US. I feel like they're doing graduate work on top of undergrad work, but that's more or less irrelevant to the story.
> 
> Any grammatical errors in Fitz's drunk dialogue are intentional (and you can safely assume that he's slurring a lot more than I wrote).
> 
> The rating is perhaps a bit low - strongly implied sexual content at the end.

Jemma Simmons had a routine. 

Every Saturday morning, she woke up just after dawn to jog through campus for precisely 35 minutes, after which she would do fifteen minutes of stretches to cool down. Then she would have tea and breakfast, which was usually granola and fruit, followed by catching up on her correspondence and reading any scientific journals she may have neglected to read during the busy school week. She spent every Saturday afternoon either in her lab or the library, depending on what assignments she had left to complete and what extra credit she aimed to accomplish. The rest of her day was determined by one of two factors: Either she had been invited out to a social occasion, or she had not. The latter was far more common, although occasionally she did turn down invitations if the asker was too boring for her taste. (Almost every single social occasion to which she had been invited in her two years at uni had ended up being beyond banal in any case, which had just resulted in her demurring more often than not.)

This particular Saturday it was the latter, and as such she spent the evening in the following way: Treating herself to takeaway from a favorite off-campus restaurant (she always walked there and back, to freshen up from a day spent bent over bodies, chemicals, or books); reading for an hour after eating (this week it was the fascinating history of a particular group of spies during World War II); and then watching television or a movie (usually while multi-tasking on her phone or computer) until her eyes were too heavy to keep open. Some people (her father, most notably) might think that this was a rather lonely existence, but she found it very comfortable. It had never bothered Jemma that she wasn’t popular because, frankly, she found it tedious to constantly have to slow down what she was saying – her quick mind and scientific acumen made friend-making rather tiresome. Friendly acquaintances were all she needed, and she had those in spades; there wasn’t a single person in either the biology or chemistry departments that didn’t give her a wide, genuine smile when they saw her. Anything more than that would just disrupt her schedule.

Jemma Simmons had a routine, and it did not include being frightened half to death by a Scottish engineer breaking into her dorm room. 

She was partway through her third _Doctor Who_ episode when she heard someone scrabbling at the locked door, followed swiftly by muffled swearing. The sound died down though, and she returned her attention to her laptop. Without warning, the lock popped and the door came crashing open, emitting a familiar disheveled boy with sandy-brown hair – and Jemma screamed, dumping her laptop onto the bed. Her scream triggered his own, and once the noise died down they both stood there, staring at each other as the weighted door swung closed.

At least her intruder was someone she knew: Leopold Fitz, one of the few boys in all of the science departments who had never given her a second glance. Sometimes she would even go so far as to think that he hated her, but it was still fairly early in the semester for that level of dismissiveness from him. Their first year at uni, she’d actually tried to befriend him; but where other people got shy half-smiles and muttered explanations, all she received were begrudging huffs and snapped corrections. Which was why his initial reaction to seeing her tonight (in her own room, she might add) was not what she would have expected.

“Alrigh’,” he said, words slurring together. “I know that I’m really drunk right now, but I don’t think ‘m drunk enough to be hallucinating _you_.” 

For the first time in possibly years, Jemma was so flustered that she didn’t know what to say, automatically climbing out of bed and standing so that at least they were more evenly matched. “Excuse me?”

His blue eyes tracked over her microscope-patterned pajama shorts and cotton tank top, and he groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I mean, it’s not bloody fair, is it? Conjuring you up in something like that, course I would.” 

Suddenly acutely aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra, Jemma crossed her arms. “I don’t know what you’re on about, Fitz, but you’re not hallucinating.” 

He chortled, trying to put his hands on his hips and missing on the first couple of tries. “There’s no other reason why Jemma Simmons would be in my dorm room, wearing _that_ , unless it was a halluci-cination. So, y’know, nice try Me, but I know all your tricks.” 

Rolling her eyes, she reached out and pinched his bicep hard enough to leave a bruise, and he yelped. “There, not a hallucination – and this is _my_ room, thank you very much, that you just broke into.”

Fitz looked like he was about to whine about his newly inflicted injury, but he paused, squinting at her. “This is definitely not your room.” 

“Oh for heaven’s – you had to _break_ in to _get_ in!” She stopped herself and frowned. “Wait, how did you even do that?” 

“Picked the lock.”

“You can barely stand up without tipping over,” she said, observing him tilt slightly to the left for the third time in less than a minute. “And you _picked_ the lock?!”

“I’ve got good hands,” he said, frowning as he heard himself speak. “Or something. N’ dorm locks are stupidly simple to crack, s’very not safe.” He pulled an impressive Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket at that, as if he was going to show her how it was done, but he fumbled it and the thing went flying out of his hand to land at her feet. 

“Oh yes,” Jemma deadpanned, leaning over to pick up the knife, “I can see that your hand-eye coordination is top-notch.” 

As she straightened, he sighed, briefly closing his eyes. “You really have fantastic boobs.”

“What?” she squeaked, automatically hugging her arms around her chest again.

“Not that I look, ever,” he slurred hurriedly, holding his hands out in what was supposed to be a placating gesture. “That would be really not good, not at all, because you’re a genius, not a girl –”

“But I _am_ a girl,” she interrupted, narrowing her eyes.

He let out another sigh, staring somewhat forlornly at her. “I know. It’s very inconvenient.” His equilibrium started to give out again then, and he flopped gracelessly into her desk chair with a rather cat-like sense of having meant to do exactly that all along. “S’all your fault.” 

“That I’m a girl?”

Jemma perched at the end of her bed, having the sense that her evening had gone completely off-track no matter what she did at this point. That aside, she couldn’t help her curiosity about what else he would reveal – so far, none of it matched up with what she’d understood of his opinions about her. A small part of her felt guilty for taking advantage of his inebriation, but to be fair _he_ was the one who had broken into _her_ room. 

“No, that I _noticed_. I was perfestly – per-fect-ly fine trying to think of something smart to say on my own before you wore that dress to the science departments’ Chrissmas party.” He held up one finger and made a sharp noise. “Sorry, _holiday_ party. Must not be excluvionary.” She let out a small snort-laugh; there was something particularly adorable about him correcting his _own_ drunken ramblings. “N’ then it was like –” He made an explosion hand gesture, puffing his cheeks up and blowing out air. “Forget _talking_ to you. Couldn’t _look_ at you without... without....” 

When he started waving his hand in a circle, drunken brain searching unsuccessfully for the rest of his sentence, Jemma crooked an eyebrow. “Staring at my breasts?”

Fitz’s mouth dropped open and he made an indignant squawk. “ _No!_ I wouldn’t – that’s not – never! Absolutely not!” Once he’d finished protesting, he leaned forward conspiratorially, waiting for her to mimic him before he spoke. “Without wanting to _kiss_ you,” he hissed, leaning back and speaking the rest at a normal volume. “Which is completely awful.” 

Feeling somewhat insulted, Jemma tried to pull back on the flush surely pinking her cheeks by now. “Why is wanting to kiss me completely awful? And _why_ are you whispering?” 

“So you don’t hear me, o’ course,” he sniffed, hands tapping frenetically against his thighs. “You live on the floor below me.”

Jemma sighed for what felt like the umpteenth time. “I’m not a hallucination –”

“And s’awful because _that’s_ never – you’d never... wouldn’t happen, s’all.” He crossed his arms and dropped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I don’t even want to... y’know. I mean I _do_ , but it’s not – I just think we’d get on. N’ the only bloody time I can talk to you is when I’m dreaming – or, ‘parently, when ’m plastered.” A long pause filled the space between them, and Jemma’s chest constricted in something between shock and pity. “Yeah,” he mumbled, eyes slipping closed, “think awful ‘bout sums it up.”

“Oh, _no_ ,” she exclaimed, shooting forward to nudge sharply at his shin. “You are _not_ falling asleep in my bedroom.”

“It’s my room,” he insisted petulantly, slitting his eyes open to glare at her. “Look, see? Mine.” He pointed vaguely at her desk, and Jemma lighted on the miniature TARDIS she kept by her backup drive.

“You watch Doctor Who?” It slipped out before she’d truly processed his statement, and then shook her head – she was trying to get _rid_ of him, not find out more about him. “I mean, no, that’s _my_ TARDIS, thanks very much. Look, I can prove that this is not your room. Come on,” she said, standing, wrapping her bathrobe securely around herself, and then reaching over to tug him out of her chair. He stumbled to his feet and straight into her, her hands going up automatically against his chest with him grabbing onto her arms to catch himself. Suddenly, Jemma found herself only a few inches away from a set of piercing blue eyes, and she inhaled sharply. The energy zinging through her veins at his proximity was very unsettling.

Clearly just as aware of their closeness, Fitz swayed slightly as he stared down at her, unconsciously licking his lips. “What would you do,” he sounded out, voice rather lower than it had been before, “if I kissed you right now?”

Swallowing, Jemma crooked an eyebrow up in a show of bravado. “Probably slap you.”

“Right,” he said, straightening up immediately, “good to know.”

She suppressed a laugh and wrapped one hand around his arm to guide him to the door. “Okay, time for you to go home.”

“You’re gonna be wrong.” His mumbled protests aside, he was adorably docile as she guided him down the dorm hallway. The stairs were something of a challenge, and required her to do a bit more shoving than leading.

“You know,” she mused, helping him regain his balance at the landing, “I never thought you’d be much of a drinker, Fitz. I’m a little surprised.”

Despite her best efforts, Jemma couldn’t support Fitz and unlatch the door at the same time, so she had to lean him against the wall and come back once she’d figured out how to prop the heavy stairwell door open. Rather like a well-trained puppy, he just waited and looped his arm over her shoulder once she’d returned, giving a half-hearted shrug in response. “They only like me when I’ve been drinking, s’all.” 

“What?” She slowed down from what was already effectively a lumbering crawl along the corridor so she could look at him, and, for once since he’d broken into her room, he wasn’t staring back at her.

“M’ roommate and his friends. They think I’m funny when I’m drunk, so tha’s the only time they invite me out.” His voice was the nonchalant, matter-of-fact flatness of someone who was too drunk to care, but her heart twisted again at the idea that this brilliant scientist was that desperate for companionship.

“Oh, Fitz,” she murmured, glancing down at their slowly moving feet and shaking her head slightly. It had simply never occurred to her that he might be as friendless as she; when she was around, he’d never seemed to struggle to get along with people in class or lab (except when it was first thing in the morning). 

Since he thankfully remembered his room number even in this inebriated state (why the rather different number on her own door hadn’t clued him in, she had no idea), it wasn’t long before they reached his room. Once she’d leaned him against the wall again, Jemma patted his front pockets before reaching in to pluck out his keys. Fitz let out a loud yelp and his face flushed bright pink in two seconds flat, and she rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, I just needed your keys.”

“I _know_ that,” he started, but never finished because she quickly fitted the right key into the lock and swung the door open. The room was dark, his roommate still clearly out partying, except for the square of light from the hallway that revealed a large amount of laundry on the floor. 

She crossed her arms and let out a small snort of laughter. “You’d think that the visible carpeting would’ve tipped you off.

His mouth fell open, and he squinted from the inside of the room back to her. “You _are_ real.” 

“Yes I am,” she answered, suppressing a grin at the gobsmacked expression on his face.

After swallowing thickly a few times, he shuffled into the room and then turned back to her. “Well, tomorrow I’m going to bloody hate myself, I am.”  

Jemma chuckled, pushing loose tendrils of hair out of her face. “It’s okay –” 

“Would help at all if I said I’m reallyreally sorry?” This would’ve been slightly more earnest if he hadn’t swayed halfway through saying it and needed to catch himself on the door handle. 

“Oh, I expect you to,” she teased, giving him a small smile. “Repeatedly. But for the moment, you should drink a large glass of water and go to bed.” Fitz nodded mutely back at her and she wondered if she should say something else, but decided against it. “Goodnight, Fitz.”

Once Jemma was back in her room, she tried to go back to watching her _Doctor Who_ episode, but she wasn’t able to concentrate on it as she had been before. Her mind kept wandering to the boy she’d thought hated her all of this time, who was so skilled with his hands that he’d managed to pick the lock even while piss-drunk. 

The next day, she interrupted her Sunday routine in order to check on her erstwhile intruder, although she did decide to wait an acceptable amount of time to have let him sleep first. (As she waited, definitely not checking the clock every twenty minutes since waking up, she managed to finish reading her newest scientific journal from cover-to-cover.) Just past noon, Jemma showed up at Fitz’s room with a cup of dining hall coffee, his Swiss Army knife (which he’d forgotten the night before), and a broad smile, which only got wider at the sight of him when he cracked open the door. His eyes were barely open, his curls tousled, and he wore a threadbare gray shirt over monkey-patterned boxers. At seeing who was on the other side of his door, however, he let out a strangled noise of surprise and swung it farther open.

“Simmons!” He then stared at her, slack jawed, for an uncomfortably long time.

Shifting awkwardly on her feet, she cleared her throat and held the lidded paper cup out to him. “I thought you might need a pick-me-up,” she said pleasantly, holding out the knife in her other hand. “And you forgot the tools of your trade.” 

His eyes flickered between her face and the cup a few times, and he swallowed. “Um, yeah, right. That’d probably help with the pounding headache I’ve got.” He frowned, gave his head a small shake, and then winced at the movement. “I meant the drink, not the knife.”

“I assumed.” After passing along the knife, which he tossed onto his bed, she let out a quiet tut as he took the cup from her. “Did you drink a glass of water like I told you to?”

Raising the cup, he squinted at her over it. “I have a vague memory of filling a cup with water at one point. _May_ have left it in the bathroom.” He took a sniff of the steaming opening in the plastic top and flinched, holding the cup out as if it was poisonous. “Is that coffee?” 

“Yes, I... well, I don’t know what you drink but I assumed that most college men....” She cringed, fingers curling into her palms at her side. “Do you not like coffee?”

“Not so much,” he conceded, twisting around to put the cup down on a nearby, mostly cleared-off chair. “My mum only drank tea when I was growing up, so I... yeah. Something else for this lot,” he said, jerking his head at his roommate’s empty bed, “to make fun of me for.” Noticing her discomfort he took a half-step forward, one hand held out. “But it was really – thanks for bringing that to me, honestly, after the way I behaved last night I don’t deserve anything from you other than a good slap.” Fitz chuckled weakly, scratching the back of his neck. 

“It’s a good thing I’m a naturally forgiving person.” She smiled as she said it, and a small amount of tension released from his shoulders. “Okay, if you don’t like coffee, why don’t you reimburse me for my efforts by buying me a cup of tea? There’s a shop a couple blocks away that imports from London.” 

“Oh,” he breathed, eyes still a little too wide to be natural. “Right, yeah, good idea.” And then he proceeded to not move. 

Sighing, Jemma pulled her lip in between her teeth with another grin. “So maybe you get dressed, and then come find me in my room? If you remember where it is...?”

“Right,” he repeated, nodding enthusiastically and then frowning almost immediately. “Ah, no, where –”

“Two-oh-eight, one floor down.”

“Two-oh-eight, one floor down, right,” he parroted fervently, as if he was trying to burn it into his brain. “Gimme – I dunno, fifteen minutes?”

Jemma nodded and started off down the hall. The slam of his door echoed after her, and then was followed rapidly by a muffled scream; she suspected that hot coffee was now decorating his floor, in addition to the contents of his laundry basket.

Fortunately, when Fitz showed up at her dorm room almost exactly fifteen minutes later, he seemed to have returned to his normal self, curls shoved off his forehead and a button-down shirt open over a cotton tee. In truth, he was almost nothing like the person with whom Jemma had become familiar in the two years of attending school around each other – but after her surprise faded, she couldn’t help but be pleased. He smiled timidly when she opened her door, and she didn’t think she could ever remember seeing him smile at her before. On the walk to the tea shop, he apologized another ten times and most likely would have continued to do so if she hadn’t threatened to hit him over the head with her wallet if he used the word “sorry” again. During the three hours that they spent in the tea shop, they managed to completely avoid discussing what he’d said to her the night before, except for a very brief exchange. Jemma had been thinking about it all day and just couldn’t stop herself from bringing it up.

“Do you really just go out with them because you think that’s the only way they’ll like you?” She’d blurted it out, completely lacking the tact of any normal, sociable person, but somehow their informal tea already felt far more personal than any of the hundreds of banal conversations she’d had since arriving at the school.

Fitz snapped his gaze up from the dregs of his tea, staring at her for a few moments before he answered. “Um, I guess so. It can be fun sometimes, but... it’s not really my area, otherwise. Did I really say that last night?” He exhaled at her nod and leaned back in his chair. “Christ.”

As she tapped her fingers against the side of her empty cup, she desperately wanted to ask him what else he remembered from the night before. But Jemma wasn’t totally clueless, and she noticed the way his ears had turned a faint pink. Embarrassing him really wasn’t the goal of this conversation, and she didn’t want to scare him off. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to someone so effortlessly or for so long a time, and she found – to her relief – that she was genuinely enjoying the company of someone who was her intellectual equal. So Jemma changed subjects, on to the TARDISes they both kept on their desks, and neither of them mentioned that night again for a long time.

Jemma Simmons had a routine, and it changed gradually, almost without her noticing.

In fact, Fitz quickly became the best friend that Jemma had ever had, and all the little ways she happily let him disrupt her schedule felt natural virtually instantly. She went from spending most of her non-lab or class time by herself to spending most of it with him. On Saturdays, he still occasionally went out drinking with his roommate and associated ruffians, but more and more often he would make excuses to spend the time with her instead – once she’d made it clear that she wanted him around, that is. Her first version of Saturday night (the one that had primarily included dates) became almost nonexistent, and the second version was adjusted to accommodate Fitz’s constant and welcome presence. 

One night, when they’d sat in the dark of her dorm room after finishing a television episode and continued chatting without any awareness that the episode had ended, Jemma’s eyes flickered down to his lips and she found herself wondering if he was going to kiss her. To her disappointment, he did nothing of the sort, only yawning a few moments later and scooting off the bed to return to his room. Once he’d gone, she realized that she’d been waiting for him to make oeuvres towards her for weeks. She’d been subconsciously expecting him to pursue the kind of relationship he’d seemed to want when he’d stared down at her in her dorm room, eyes fixed intently on her lips. Although a part of her was pleased that he seemed to enjoy their friendship, the rest of her wondered if something had changed for him. 

In the days following, she found herself sitting incredibly close to him when they studied, or watched TV, or did just about anything while sitting on furniture that fit more than one person, and she wondered what she _would_ do if he kissed her. The fact that he was virtually the only male student in their area of study that hadn’t made an advance on her – despite the fact that he had, at one point, clearly wanted to – completely baffled her when she let herself think about it. But she didn’t know how to bring it up, or even if she wanted to; on some level, she was incredibly happy and comfortable with the friendship they’d been cultivating. 

Towards the end of the school year, on another Saturday evening, Fitz showed up unexpectedly when he was supposed to be out getting pissed, looking distinctly discomfited. After making room for him on her bed and placing the laptop on her desk chair so they could both watch the episode, a fair amount of nudging got him to reveal that the boys had tried to convince him to grab and kiss the first girl he saw, and he’d flat-out refused. He said he probably wouldn’t be going out with them anymore. Although Jemma thought that was rather a good thing (she didn’t care for the lot of them, and had repeatedly declined Fitz’s invitations to come along), her mind had rather surprisingly focused on the fact that she didn’t like the idea of Fitz kissing _anyone_ – other than her. 

She spent the rest of the week turning that instinct over and over in her head and feeling frustrated that a solution wasn’t readily apparent. The idea of risking their friendship was abhorrent; but then again, they might never have been friends in the first place if he hadn’t drunkenly confessed his attraction to her. 

After a lot of cajoling and apologizing, Fitz’s roommate had convinced him to come out with them for drinks the next Saturday, despite the misgivings he muttered to Jemma during lab work on Friday. The rest of her Saturday was ordinary, involving brunch with Fitz and reading as they leaned against each other on the quad in the morning, and then cooperative studying in the afternoon. Once he’d left to meet his roommate that evening, dragging his feet all the way back to the dorm, she felt deeply disconcerted for absolutely no reason at all – except that a small, petty voice in the back of her head was worried that the boys would try to set Fitz up with someone again. Instead of working, she found herself pacing back and forth across her room, clenching and unclenching her hands. Finally, she made a snap decision, the kind of decision that she’d never made before in her life. Retrieving his Swiss Army knife from where he’d forgotten it (again) on her desk at some point last week, she set off to break into Fitz’s room.

This time, Jemma Simmons decided to disrupt her own routine.

Perhaps both predictably and regrettably, picking the lock of his door was altogether far too easy – she gave brief thought to reporting this to campus security, because it surely wasn’t safe if someone as unskilled as she could do so with just a little practice. Luckily, no one passed by as she broke the law, and she convinced herself that it wasn’t really a crime if she was doing so without the intention of harming him or his belongings. (The law-abiding part of her disagreed vehemently, but she pushed it aside.) Then she perched herself at the edge of his desk chair and waited. This didn’t quite fit with the rushed feeling she’d had in her dorm room when she’d decided she needed to see him, and she found herself tapping nervously at her knees. A part of her wanted to laugh; she’d just unconsciously imitated one of his mannerisms.

Although she’d expected him to be gone for most of the evening, it was less than an hour later that she heard the key turning smoothly in the lock.

When Fitz strode into the room, hand automatically (and needlessly) reaching out for the light switch, he jumped at the sight of her. “Jemma!” Sliding to the side to let the door closed, he shook his head. “I only had four beers, I _know_ I’m not that drunk this time.”

She tried to return his smile, getting unsteadily to her feet, but gave up the effort at being normal just as quickly. “We never talked about the night you broke into my room. Not really.” 

His eyes widened and he dropped his gaze to his trainers. “I mean, there’s – really, there’s nothing to discuss.” 

“Maybe there is,” she said, shuffling forward a few steps. Fitz glanced back up at her, and then spotted the Swiss Army knife on his desk. 

“How’d you get in here, Jemma?” Turning quickly, she grabbed the knife and held it out. His fingers brushed against hers when he took it, making nerves zip through her stomach, and his brows furrowed. “You broke into my room... on purpose.” He met her gaze, squinting suspiciously as he studied her. “Are _you_ drunk?” 

“No!” Jemma let out a brief tsk, wrapping her arms nervously around herself. “Just – do you remember what you asked me that night? Before we left my room? I don’t know how much you would, with that amount of alcohol, but –”

“I remember,” he muttered, cheeks tingeing pink. “I can’t believe I –”

“Ask me again.”

“What?”

Stepping forward another couple of feet, so that they were only a foot or so apart, she inhaled. “Ask me the same thing. Now." 

Fitz stared down at her, mouth hanging slightly open in confusion for a moment before he caught on and swallowed. “What would you do if I kissed you?”

“I’d kiss you back,” she whispered, twisting her fingers into the scratchy cotton blend of her cardigan.

“Oh.” He inhaled sharply, deep blue eyes roaming over her face in shock until he seemed to remember what the question had been.

When he finally moved, it happened too fast for her to prepare herself and she found her arms trapped against his chest, held there as his hands slid around her shoulders and his mouth descended to hers. His lips were soft and firm, he tasted like beer, and she had the vague thought that she could grow to like the drink if she learned it through his kisses. Shifting around without separating from his lips, she settled for tangling her hands into the loose hem of his shirt, stretching up on her tiptoes to angle his mouth open and dart her tongue inside. A low noise reverberated in the back of his throat and one hand slid up to cup the back of her head, chasing the tease of her tongue with his own and pulling her even closer.

Their kisses started out soft and searching, and for someone who was so awkward most of the time Fitz was incredibly good at giving just enough of himself before pulling back, making her ache for more. She wondered if he was testing her, waiting to see if she would change her mind before he truly committed, and she almost laughed at the idea that there was anywhere else that she’d want to be right now. As she had the vague thought that she needed to thank whoever had taught him how to do this, he deepened the kisses, fingers flexing into her skin and tongue sliding against hers in a perfectly illicit way. Her breath hitched when he pulled back, studying her heavy-lidded gaze, and whatever he saw there must have assuaged his doubts because he lost the last of his hesitance. Heat pooled low in her belly as he moved away to trail his lips down her neck, and Jemma decided that from now on most of her nights would consist of kissing Fitz.  

Later that night, long after he’d disabled the door handle (possibly permanently) and tied a sock to the outside, she murmured a similar thought into his ear and he let out a breathless laugh. Eyes slipping briefly closed when she wrapped her legs more tightly around his hips, he released a small groan, lips sliding wetly over her shoulder.

“Should’ve broken into your room ages back,” he managed to pant, and she let out a brief snort of laughter.

“I really shouldn’t reward your misbehavior.” Her voice broke on a whimper, and his hands clutched her to him a little more desperately. 

“Good thing we’re even then.” Fitz nipped at her collarbone and she laughed again, holding him close as they moved intimately together and feeling rather like this was the best night she’d had since enrolling in uni to begin with. In the end, it was only the first of many similar nights to come, and she never missed the way her life used to be before a drunken engineer had barged unceremoniously into it.

Jemma Simmons used to have a routine, and it’d been vastly overrated.


End file.
